How Occupationally High-Achieving Individuals With a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia Manage Their Symptoms

Abstract

Use of strategies in a preventive fashion, the effectiveness of the identified strategies, and the comfort individuals expressed with using several different strategies supported these individuals in achieving their occupational goals. The findings contribute to an overall shift in attitudes about recovery from schizophrenia and highlight the importance of learning from people with lived experience about how to support recovery.

Positive psychiatry comes of age

“…Positive psychiatry applies even more importantly to people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and major depression, serious physical illnesses such as cancer and HIV-AIDS, and serious cognitive disorders including dementias or major neurocognitive disorders (Palmer et al , 2014; Cohen et al , 2017; Sharma et al , 2017; Moore et al , 2018). In one study, Mohr and colleagues (2011) measured religiosity and spirituality in 115 outpatients with schizophrenia and related disorders, using semi-structured clinical interviews, and then followed the cohort for three years.…”

Avoidance of accelerated aging in schizophrenia?: Clinical and biological characterization of an exceptionally high functioning individual

“…The neurobiological underpinning of “belief flexibility” have not yet been established, and there may be an important distinction to be made between the neurobiology of psychotic thoughts or beliefs and that underlying the capacity for meta-mental reflection on those thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions. The findings from Cohen et al (2017) are relevant in that high functioning people with schizophrenia self-reported engaging in such reflection/meta-mental processing as one of their key coping strategies. We also retrospectively contacted IP after completion of the present study and asked her about her self-perceived coping strategies.…”

“…However, the present results serve as a solid basis for a priori hypotheses to inform and guide larger scale research. Although IP is one person there are other people, albeit of unknown prevalence, who have high social-occupational functioning while living with schizophrenia (Cohen et al, 2017). Further research is needed to determine the prevalence of such persons, and the degree to which the pattern of results demonstrated by IP generalizes to other high functioning persons with schizophrenia.…”

“…Relevant domains include severity of psychopathology, neurocognition, brain function, capacity to consent (a key aspect of independent functioning), and biomarkers of aging. Yet, other than a recent qualitative study of high functioning people with schizophrenia (Cohen et al, 2017), there has been a dearth of empirical research concerning such persons.…”

Remarkable lives: Robert Lawrence in conversation with Jerome Carson

“…Yet unlike so many people with this diagnosis she has done exceptionally well in life. However in a co-authored paper looking at occupationally high achieving individuals with a diagnosis with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, it is not surprising that their sample size was only 20, even though their study was a qualitative one (Cohen et al, 2017). Peter Chadwick once said to me that he thought that only eight per cent of people given such a diagnosis had a positive outcome (Chadwick, 2008).…”